


Res Novae

by Sineala



Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome, Alternate Universe - Historical, Community: trope_bingo, Gen, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 06:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Ancient Rome, Les Amis -- or rather, I suppose, the amici -- are supporters of Catiline in the conspiracy of 63 BC. Events progress about as well as you would think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Res Novae

**Author's Note:**

> For Trope Bingo, the square "au: historical." Also for Lysimache, who asked for it.
> 
> There are quotations from Catullus 27, Sallust's Bellum Catilinae 33, and a very obvious reference to Suetonius' life of Caesar. "Res Novae" literally means "new things," but it is also used to mean "revolution." Also I mostly wrote this so that I could make a Marius-and-Sulla joke.

You couldn't plot to overthrow the state while sober.

Well, you could, but the drink certainly helped, Grantaire thought, as he poured the dark, dark wine into the mixing-bowl with a practiced hand, then stood back to admire the effect. When he looked up, Courfeyrac was staring at him, his eyes wide. He might have been impressed. He might have been horrified.

"Aren't you going to water that at all?"

Definitely horrified.

Grantaire raised an eyebrow, carefully unmoved. "If you were going to complain, you shouldn't have made me drinking-master!"

On the far couch, Jehan snorted in derision. "You're more of a drunk than a drunken grape," he said, quoting one of those charming poems that had been so popular recently. Grantaire had no idea where he even found those verses. Half of them were flatly obscene and the other half of them were just heartbroken. Sometimes, he thought, the fellow who wrote them would be an interesting man to meet. Share a cup of wine with. Somehow it always came back to wine.

They were an full party tonight, Courfeyrac and his eight guests; they had their auspicious nine. Marius was missing, but Marius was often missing. The gods only knew where he was.

Grantaire hoped that one of these nights, Catiline himself would deign to pay them a visit. But that was unlikely, on tonight of all nights, if only because he knew where Catiline was: in Etruria, meeting with his army. Oh, the man could say what he liked about debt cancellation and help for the poor, but Grantaire suspected he'd only said half of it so that Sulla's veterans would throw their lot in with him. Still, he'd like to meet the man himself, just once, if only to be able to tell Enjolras about it.

And Enjolras was on again about Catiline. The color was high in his cheeks, but Grantaire had hardly seen him take so much as a sip of wine -- no, he was drunk on his own damned ideals. "Have you heard the speech he is giving to Gaius Manlius, to recite for his army?" Enjolras was saying, eagerly. "'But at power or wealth, for the sake of which wars, and all kinds of strife, arise among mankind, we do not aim; we desire only our liberty, which no honorable man relinquishes but with life.'" His eyes shone. "Roma Dea, we desire only our liberty. We will have all the suffering plebs of the city at our backs, with words such as these!"

"And swords to go with them!" Bahorel added. Next to him, Combeferre made a noise of agreement. "There will be war. There must be."

Enjolras drew a breath, and just as he was about to embark on what was undoubtedly more praise of Catiline's virtues, the door-curtain was pushed back. Grantaire turned and -- it was Marius.

Marius' clothes were in disarray, he was as out of breath as if he'd run the whole way here from the Forum, and he looked around the room abstractedly, as if he wasn't quite seeing any of them at all. He was smiling.

"Yes? What news?"

"News?" Marius' brows drew together. "I was at the circus. I met a girl." As he said it, Grantaire could identify the look in his eyes: infatuation. Grantaire sighed.

He had to know they were only keeping him around for his name. It was good luck, having a Marius. Or rather, it was mostly an amusing sort of luck, given that the majority of Catiline's supporters had been Sulla's men, Sulla's soldiers in the wars, but any name was better than none. At the last party, Feuilly had suggested that Marius have himself adopted by one of the Junii. Become a Brutus. That would be even better luck, with Cicero the consul as their Tarquin.

Enjolras made a face of faint distaste. He was never one to talk about girls; only Roma herself would do. And not even dancing-boys either, Grantaire thought, and then with a strange stab of jealousy: but he'd bed Catiline. That hardly counted for anything, though, since half of Rome had probably had the man already and the other half wanted to, no matter their tastes otherwise. Everyone wanted Catiline. Cicero himself would probably have bedded the man.

At least, he would have, before Catiline had tried to have him killed. 

That had certainly ruined the relationship. It was an amusing thought, somehow, and Grantaire took another sip of his drink just so he wouldn't laugh at poor Marius.

"A girl?" he said. Marius never actually seemed to have liked the slaves at all, as far as he could recall, so that was unusual. "You forgot the last one quick enough, when she was sold off to a brothel in Baiae. What talent does this one have, then?"

"No, no," said Marius, urgently. "Not a _girl_!" With a wave of his hand, he dismissed every slave-girl from here to Massilia, however many there had been. "A woman. A maiden, of a noble family, I am sure."

Having said that, he sat down in the middle of the fine mosaic floor, leaning against the nearest couch, as if he did not even know or care that he was sitting in the middle of the dinner's unswept bones, for of course they had not let the slaves in to clear them. It must be love. By Hercules, what a mess.

"Right." Enjolras continued as if no one had interrupted him. "While Catiline prepares his army, there is still a way for us to proceed in Rome, even though the consul has discovered the first part of the plan. The hope is this: there are Gaulish ambassadors, from the Allobroges, in the city, here to complain about the injustice of their governor. Their cause is as ours. If we can only reach them, send them a letter, many letters, offer to relieve them of the misery that plagues them--"

Grantaire drained his cup and let the words wash over him. It was an awful plan, dependent on too many things. The first idea had been better. Arson and murder, that was simple enough. But this? It was all going to go wrong. One letter might make it through, but with every additional man who knew about the plot came one more potential traitor.

"Lentulus and four of the others are writing letters now. Vulturcius will take them, as far as the Mulvian bridge, but he won't go alone, of course." Enjolras bit his lip. "I will go with them."

It was his death if they were caught. He knew that. He had to know that.

"I will go with you."

Grantaire heard his own voice saying those words, brave as any hero from the tales, and Enjolras looked at him and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> The men who had written to the Allobroges were all publicly strangled the next day, after the letters were intercepted. (We know who all five of them were, but I figure that at least for AU purposes, more people could have been involved with it.)


End file.
